


Forgiveness

by thedevilchicken



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fights, Getting Together, Injury, Injury Recovery, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Underage Sex, erastes/eromenos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:35:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Stentor visits Nikolaos after he returns from his supposed death. They have a lot to talk about, but neither of them is good at talking.
Relationships: Nikolaos/Stentor (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: RelationShipping 2020





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



This is not the house that he grew up in. 

He was fifteen years old the first time he came here. He was given directions verbally by one of his instructors in the agoge, accurate but offhand, like he was hoping he'd forget what he'd been told along the way. He didn't forget, though, despite how quickly his heart was beating in his chest; he ran almost the whole way there, like the breathlessness of action might drown out his jitters, and he didn't have to wonder if he'd found the right house when he arrived. The door was standing open like Nikolaos knew his thoughts and he was sitting there at the table inside. 

The run from the barracks hadn't driven off his nerves that night, and he feels almost the same way now. Nikolaos has sent the household helots away for the evening and Myrrine is away from home with her infuriating offspring, so they're sitting there alone. Nikolaos served the food himself, like he did that first time, and neither of them has spoken much. The problem has always been that off the battlefield, away from war or training for it, they have things to say but don't know how to say them. Or that's true on Stentor's part at least; he's not sure if Nikolaos would say the same. 

They've finished eating and they each have a cup of wine; Stentor drains what's left in his and Nikolaos lifts the jug to pour him more but he reaches a hand out over the cup to stop him before he can do it. 

"You won't have another?" Nikolaos says. 

Stentor shakes his head. He rubs his mouth as he looks at him across the table, rubs his throat and tries to keep the expression on his face to something neutral but the fact is he does not feel neutral. He feels a number of things that have no relation to neutrality, like anger and frustration and a layer of relief that he still can't quite shake off each time he sees him or he thinks of him, possibly because it's still sometimes so difficult to understand he's still alive. He spent so long believing Nikolaos was dead, and Alexios had killed him, but neither thing was true. He's relieved, yes, but he's not sure he'll ever understand why Nikolaos allowed him to believe it in the first place. 

"No," he says, to the offer of wine. "I should go home." Because this is not the house that he was raised in, and it's not a house he's ever really lived in, and legally, it will pass to Alexios, not him. Stentor has his own home anyway, his own land, fields and an orchard and helots that work them, and a wife. She's a good wife for him, he thinks - she's tall and strong and if she'd been trained like he was, she'd likely be a better fighter than he's ever been. She understands that he doesn't desire her any more than she desires him, but their relationship and his position means she enjoys a certain degree of freedom in society and he's pleased that she's never displeased to see him. She gets on well with Myrrine, too, which he's not sure counts entirely in her favour. But, as he says it, he knows he won't go home. He'll go to the barracks and spend the night there. It's not only closer but amongst that many men it's sometimes easier to feel alone. At this moment, sitting at the table there in Nikolaos' house, _alone_ is all he wants. Or, at least, it's the only thing he wants that he can have. 

It's dark outside and in the lamplight, Nikolaos looks older than he ever has before. He looks tired and worn in ways that Stentor's never seen him look before. It's been some time since Boeotia and his dramatic return to public life, but not _that_ long. It's been months, and this is the first time since that day, and since the truce, that they've sat down together, just the two of them. Stentor had an army to command and Nikolaos needed to travel south to Sparta and make his excuses to the kings. 

Stentor didn't get answers there in Boeotia; he suspects he won't now, either, and he wonders why he even came. It can't only be because them being here, being permitted to be here, means that just like that first night, Nikolaos must have asked for special dispensation to absent himself from his syssition; _their_ syssition now, as Stentor has long since been a member of it, too. It's also not the fact that he still feels indebted for how Nikolaos adopted him, though admittedly there's very little that he wouldn't do for him if asked. That's why he's here, perhaps - not from obligation, debt, curiosity, respect. He's here because even after all this time and everything that's happened in it, he will always come when Nikolaos calls. He wishes that weren't true. 

He stands, and when he stands he can see that at his own side of the table, Nikolaos is rubbing idly at a scar high up in his left thigh from an old injury. Stentor's mouth twists bitterly. His insides twist along with it. He remembers when the wound was fresh, or at least still mending, when Nikolaos didn't even know his name. 

"Stay," Nikolaos says, and Stentor looks down at him as Nikolaos looks up. He looks tired, and worn, and older, but he's still the same man that Stentor's fucking yearned for all these years. 

"Do you remember the day we met?" Nikolaos asks, and that's it: Stentor sits down heavily. 

Because he remembers. He's not likely to forget. 

\---

When Stentor was not quite fourteen years old, the instructor for his cohort in the agoge told them that they'd be hosting an important guest. 

Some of the other boys talked about who they thought it might be - one of the kings, perhaps, or an ephor or two, maybe an official visiting from one of Sparta's allies. Stentor didn't join in the discussion, not because he wasn't interested but because he couldn't see what use discussing it might be when they had no way to know. Even then, he wasn't much for idle chatter, and he couldn't yet see how significant that visitor might prove to be. 

The following morning, bright and early on the training grounds, their instructor introduced a man whose name they knew but whose face few of them had seen before. Aetius, their head combat instructor, called him _Nikolaos_ , but the whisper that went through the boys of all the different years wasn't _Nikolaos_ \- it was _the Wolf_. He didn't look like much, Stentor thought, as he peered at him past the shoulders of the older boys in front of him. He didn't look like a general, though he supposed he wasn't sure what he'd thought a general should look like. He definitely didn't look like a famous military tactician or a soldier with any more skill than any other hand. He had an average face and a good Spartan build, like you might find anywhere in Lakonia. But then he took a step forward and as the agoge's instructors took a deferential step back, Stentor understood. Even with his clearly injured thigh, he had the bearing of a leader, and everyone who'd gathered there responded to that. He didn't even have to say a word. 

"The general will be here to observe for eight days," Aetius said. "You will all fight. He will watch. You will not engage him. Do you understand?"

The boys all chorused _yes_. Nikolaos cast his gaze across them, coolly and appraisingly like he might his own men, then gave Aetius a nod and turned away, and they brought him out a chair to sit on. As their instructors led them away into their cohorts and drew names for the fights, Stentor glanced back. He couldn't help but think that if a man who seemed so commonplace, not especially handsome, nor tall, nor strong, could rise so high, then maybe he could, too. 

That first day, Nikolaos really did just sit there and observe, which set the tone entirely. Stentor could tell that some of the other boys were trying to impress him with they way they fought and when they broke from the fighting to eat, there were whispers amongst them about the true reason he was there with them, instead of spending time with family, or the ephors, or other soldiers who were back in Sparta for a time. Some of them thought it might be a test of some kind, but no one could settle on who was being tested, or why, or even precisely how. Some of them thought he might have been sent there to motivate them, or to assess the progress of their training, or to assess the efficacy of the training itself. Some thought perhaps it was punishment for some misdeed or other, unlikely as that seemed with a man of the Wolf's reputation. And the strongest notion of them all was that he'd come to find himself an eromenos. The older boys said he'd never had one, though where they'd learned that from Stentor wasn't sure. So, perhaps he'd decided it was time. 

The idea seemed nearly laughable: when would a general of the Spartan army find spare time to pass with an eromenos from the agoge, especially when he was so often deployed far from home? But, as Stentor looked at him, as he awaited his turn to fight one-on-one in front of him, he had to admit it was an appealing thought. There was a certain level of respect for the boys with a notable erastes, and Nikolaos was notable indeed. There could be benefits from the association beyond that, too - he might introduce his eromenos to his syssition, and who amongst them would dare say no? And access to his expertise, his personal instruction... Stentor longed for that kind of advantage, lowborn as he was. 

The agoge might have levelled the field between the boys somewhat but Stentor knew his family was neither noble nor wealthy; no great man had come from them, no ephors, no krypteia, generals, priests, or anyone of any particular renown. His parents had died when he was so young that he had no memory of them and he'd been raised by his maternal grandfather, a man of few words who'd lost an arm in battle and consequently never fought again. He had no illusions that his background would serve him in his future in any way at all. A man like Nikolaos, though, could be very useful to him. 

He didn't fight last, but he wasn't far from it. He remembers looking at Nikolaos sitting there beside the circle where they fought and being so distracted that his opponent - an older boy by the name of Diokles, stronger and larger - landed the first blow without any attempt at a defence. The wooden training sword hit Stentor hard across his sword hand, sharply, and he yelped out loud before he had a chance to stop himself as Diokles laughed out loud at him. He wasn't sure if his fingers were broken or just bruised but he dropped his sword anyway, into the dirt that puffed up like a cloud as it hit. Quickly, he tried to pick it up, but his fingers wouldn't grip it and the other boy kicked him down onto his back by his fallen sword. His cheeks burned with anger and shame behind the shield that he pulled up to keep the sword blows from landing but Diokles kicked him while he did it, bruised his arm and his ribs and one hip, caught his head and made his ears ring, until finally Stentor lashed out with his good arm between strikes, caught the boy's ankle and brought him down, too. The only problem was, that made the next blows harder.

An instructor stepped in soon after and pulled them apart. Stentor ached, and his nose and mouth were bloody, and he could tell then that he wouldn't be able to use his hand well for several days at least, and all because he'd been distracted by the thought of a relationship between the general and himself that really couldn't be. He didn't dare look at him then, bloody and defeated, because although he'd always understood that he couldn't be chosen, he didn't want to see the disapproving, disappointed look in Nikolaos' eyes that would confirm it. Or, worse yet, perhaps his look would be entirely indifferent. 

Stentor was one of the last to leave once the fighting was done, mostly because the ache in his hip made him limp and the sting in his rubs made it harder to breathe. He was one of the last and so he saw when Diokles, the boy who'd beaten him so soundly, strode up to Nikolaos. In that moment, Stentor hated him - he was tall, good looking, seventeen years old with a strong jaw and big eyes and good technique, and a certainty to the way he moved that said he knew his own importance. When he said, "General, I want to be your eromenos," Stentor hated him all the more because he believed the answer would be yes - how could it be anything else? He still had Stentor's blood on his hands, and the swagger of a recently-won victory, and his tall, muscular frame. He looked like an eromenos anyone could be proud of. 

"No," Nikolaos said. 

Stentor couldn't see the expression on Diokles' face, but it was probably a lot like his own: startled. 

"No?" Diokles said. 

Nikolaos stood. Diokles was taller than him, just slightly, and leaner than him though that was the doing of the agoge's strict diet, but Nikolaos' bearing as he set his hands on his hips was entirely different. 

"No," he repeated. "I don't wish to have you."

Diokles balled his hands into fists. "But why?" he said. "I'm the best student here. Didn't I prove that earlier? Ask anyone."

Nikolaos looked at him sternly. "I have asked," he said. "That's why I don't wish to have you."

"I don't understand."

"It's not important that you do." Nikolaos gestured back toward the barracks. "Now go."

Diokles paused there like he was considering what he should do next. Stentor knew his temperament - he was likely trying to decide if this was just a test and if so, how he could pass it, and indeed if it was a test worth passing. He was likely trying to decide if he could attack General Nikolaos in the admittedly failing daylight and get away with it and hadn't even considered that it was a fight he might not win. That was, Stentor thought, the only reason he could think of that Nikolaos might not want him: Diokles was good, the best fighter in the agoge, but he wasn't as good as he thought he was. 

For an uneasy moment, Stentor really believed that Diokles' temper might get the better of him, and he had no idea how Nikolaos might react. But then Diokles stepped back, and he turned sharply and he strode away with a snap to his step that said he was probably going back to the barracks to break the nose of the first boy he saw there who couldn't fight back. Stentor couldn't get out of tht way quickly enough with his aching hip and Diokles grabbed him by the arms, glared, hissed, "If you tell anyone about this, you're dead," then shoved him down into the dirt again and strode away. As Stentor sat there, aching, he supposed at least his nose wasn't broken. Small mercies counted for something. 

He remembers watching Diokles go and wishing he had his height, his strength, his physique, his ability. He remembers that it had been Diokles with his big green eyes and his muscular arms and his poisonous fucking mouth that had been in his mind the first time he'd dared to sneak away and masturbate. He remembers watching him go and wishing he could be like him, but not _exactly_ like him. He told himself he'd always know his own limits, even if he pushed them. And then, General Nikolaos stepped around in front of him. He offered him his and and after a brief moment staring at it, he took itr. Nikolaos helped him up. 

"Next time, focus," Nikolaos said, still clasping his wrist. "Don't allow yourself to be distracted."

Stentor nodded tightly. "I won't," he said. "Thank you. I won't."

Then Nikolaos inclined his head in something like approval and turned to walk away. 

In bed that night, on his bunk in the barracks, Stentor could almost still feel the general's warm, firm hand around his good wrist. It didn't matter that what he'd said told Stentor he'd noticed his error; if his fingers hadn't ached so much he couldn't sleep from it, he'd have wrapped them around his cock and thought of Nikolaos instead of Diokles. 

That night, in bed, aching and injured, was the first time he understood how much he wanted Nikolaos' approval. It was just a shame to know it after such a comprehensive defeat. 

\---

The following morning, Stentor's hand was swollen. 

The fact didn't exactly surprise him but that didn't make it welcome as he struggled through dressing and tying his sandals and eating what was left of the cheese he'd stolen from a nearby farm a couple of days earlier before taking the rather skimpy rations that the agoge provided. And then, once they'd all eaten, they went out to the training grounds again. 

Their training wasn't usually limited to combat. They were taught the rudiments of military strategy, taught to read and write, archery, all the things that they might need when they eventually joined the ranks of the Spartan army. It seemed, though, that for the time being they'd be fighting, and that Nikolaos would be watching, and Stentor wasn't sure if he should be grateful or disappointed that once the bouts of single combat began, his name was called out early. His ribs still ached and he was visibly bruised, and his fingers were so swollen and stiff that he could barely hold a sword. Perhaps he wasn't distracted this time, and he wasn't knocked to the ground and kicked like a disobedient dog, but he still lost. He knew the only reason he'd lasted as long as he had was his opponent, though older than Stentor was, wasn't even half as skilled as Diokles. 

As the day wore on, he tried hard to watch and analyse the fights and file away the new information on each boy's strengths and weaknesses in case he should have to fight them, but every now and then he found his gaze would stray. The general didn't seem in any way as if his attention was divided; he watched the fighting with a dispassionate eye and spoke with the instructors between bouts who nodded their heads and shared unreadable looks that did nothing to quell the gossip about the purpose of Nikolaos' visit. It did seem that he was evaluating their performance in some way but it was hard to say if that was the reason he was there or just incidental to it. 

Then, after a long day in the late autumn sun, the boys were dismissed back to the barracks. Stentor, with his aches and pains and bruises, and his limp, lingered as the others left. All except for one, who he pretended that he wasn't watching as he made his way to Nikolaos. 

Temenos wasn't the fighter that Diokles was, but he was still perfectly competent with a spear and a sword; no one there would have been hesitant to stand beside him in the phalanx. He wasn't as tall or as handsome as Diokles and Stentor couldn't claim he'd been the star of any of his nighttime fantasies. But he was intelligent, by far the best of them in academic terms, and would likely one day make an excellent commander, and from there an excellent politician. 

"I want you to be my erastes, general," Temenos said, straightforwardly, and Stentor had to admit he thought that if Diokles wasn't the type of boy that Nikolaos would welcome as his eromenos, then perhaps Temenos was. 

"No," Nikolaos replied. 

"No?"

"I'm not looking for an eromenos."

"I have an argument prepared, if you would--"

"No."

"But--"

" _No_. My mind is made up."

Temenos lingered a moment, as if surprised he hadn't even been afforded time to make his case, but then he turned and walked away, ignoring Stentor as he went. And Stentor didn't mean to look at Nikolaos, not at all, but when he stood, Stentor's gaze was drawn. When Stentor looked, Nikolaos' eyes were on him; he straightened his back, though it hurt him to do so, and made a vain attempt to hide his injured hand behind his back. 

"You did better today," Nikolaos said, then he pointed at him, at the arm Stentor had half of tucked behind his back. "Get that hand seen to. It's no good to Sparta if your fingers are broken and don't heal." 

He walked away before Stentor had the time to conjure any kind of response that wasn't an ugly, surprised expression on his face. As he walked back to the barracks, he wasn't even sure what he could have said except a rather bland _thank you_ , so perhaps it was better he'd said nothing after al, but he did at least take Nikolaos' advice: he had his hand seen to before he joined the others eating at the tables. His fingers were pronounced unbroken but very badly bruised and aggravated due to use after the injury. Much to his displeasure, one of the instructors bound his fingers together in two pairs, pushed straight and splinted with pieces of wood, and told him he wouldn't fight for the next three days. 

He wanted to fight. He wanted to be able to untie his own sandals and take his tunic off when he went to bed in his usual time instead of five times that. And, when all the lights were out and they were all supposed to sleep, he wished that he could wrap his hand around his cock and stroke himself and think of General Nikolaos. His left hand would have felt wrong, and likely cramped. He couldn't. He went to sleep frustrated. 

The following day was frustrating, too, and not only because he couldn't fight. Most of the other boys were exempt from their more academic learning until Nikolaos left, but Stentor was sent to their mathematics teacher with three other injured boys. One had broken his arm and one had dislocated his shoulder in a rather violent way, and the third had a gash by his hip that just wouldn't seem to heal, and the four of them sat there, sullen and distracted, while the others fought outside. They could hear them. It was very nearly torture. 

In the early evening, they left the mathematics teacher and started down toward the barracks with the other boys. He saw one was making his way back toward the training ground, though, and he suspected he knew why; he followed, stupidly, some way back, just near enough to hear him ask the now familiar question, and to hear Nikolaos say no. 

"I'm sorry that I couldn't fight," Stentor said, once the rather dejected other boy had left. He raised his splinted hand and Nikolaos shook his head. 

"Don't be sorry," he said. "Just heal and improve." And when he rubbed his own injured thigh to reinforce his point, Stentor understood. 

It was the same the following day: Stentor spent his time staring at numbers while wishing he could fight, but didn't allow himself too much distraction. He could improve himself while he was healing, he thought, if he paid attention to his lessons, learned what he could and didn't simply rely on the strength he was developing in his sword arm. But afterwards, again, at the end of the day, he went up to the training grounds to see another of his classmates ask and be rejected. He understood why they kept trying, he supposed, though Temenos had spread the word that Nikolaos wasn't looking for an eromenos; not only was it difficult to say if Temenos was being truthful, but even if he was...well, perhaps they would be the one to turn the general's head and change his mind. 

"What are you learning?" Nikolaos asked, and Stentor stopped as he was leaving, and turned back. 

"Mathematics," he replied. 

Nikolaos nodded. "An important lesson," he said. "How far away is your destination, and how many days' march will it take to reach it? If you lose a third of your pentekostys, how many men remain?" He stood, slowly and a little awkwardly, favouring one leg. He smiled wryly. "When the healer says you'll be fit in a month, how long does he really mean?" He shook his head, likely at his own melancholy mood, and then gestured at Stentor's hand. "How much longer?" he asked. 

"Another day," he replied. "But I think what he really means is two."

Nikolaos nodded. Stentor withdrew. He had no idea what he was doing, coming there again, but what he knew was he hadn't been sent away. 

The next day he was proved right: he was sentenced to another day away from training when his hand was checked, though his other injuries were feeling much improved despite the colour of his bruises. He spent the day poring over maps of Lakonia, roads, distances plotted between its settlements, and then, as usual, went to Nikolaos. 

"Another day?" he asked, once he'd dismissed another postulant. 

Stentor nodded. "Another day," he agreed. "How long for yours?"

"Ten days," he replied. "The physician tells me what he thinks I want to hear, so likely twenty."

"What happened?"

Nikolaos hefted himself up from his seat and, as Stentor watched, he caught the hem of his tunic, pulled it up and tucked it underneath his belt to keep it out of his way. He was naked underneath but didn't seem to mind that as he eased down the margin of the dressing at his thigh to show a livid red and healing scar. He waved him closer. Stentor, pulse racing, did as he was bidden. 

"A stray arrow," Nikolaos said. "The head stuck so they had to cut it out." He waved him closer again; Stentor stepped forward and Nikolaos took him by the wrist to lead his hand down to the scar. He pressed his fingers there, wincing faintly at it, and Stentor felt something hard beneath the skin. 

"There's a piece still in there," Stentor said, and Nikolaos gave him a stiff nod. Then he let him go, and when Stentor walked away, he knew that he was blushing. He knew the reaction down between his thighs was inappropriate, too; nakedness was nothing that should have affected him like that, not with how many men he'd seen that way already in his nearly fourteen years. But it was only the fact his right hand was still splinted that kept him from doing something Nikolaos would have been appalled at. 

On the sixth day, there were more maps. There was more fighting outside. And when he went out, in the early evening, when he'd seen Nikolaos reject yet another boy, he was waved in close again. 

"You'll fight tomorrow?" Nikolaos asked, as he rubbed his leg. 

"Yes," Stentor replied. He watched Nikolaos' hand. His skin was slick with a little oil that had a fragrance that Stentor couldn't place. He held up his own hand. "I'm meant to take this off tonight."

Nikolaos held out his hand. "Let me," he said, so Stentor did, even bemused as he was by the offer. He knelt there on the ground in front of him and held up his hand, and Nikolaos untied his bandages and pulled away the splints. He set them aside then rubbed at Stentor's fingers, carefully but firmly. "Does that hurt?" he asked, and Stentor swallowed hard. He shook his head. It didn't hurt at all, though whether that was because his fingers were now mostly healed or because Nikolaos' skin on his had made his pulse kick hard inside his veins was hard to say. Either way, he pulled his hand back anyway. 

"I'll fight tomorrow," he said. "Thank you, sir." Then he hurried away so Nikolaos wouldn't see his ridiculous if predictable adolescent reaction to his touch. But when he got back to the barracks, he slipped around the back, alone, and rested his forehead down against the wall. When he wrapped his newly unbound hand around himself, he still had oil from Nikolaos' fingers on his skin. 

He fought the following day, the one before the final day of Nikolaos' stay with them. His opponent was an older boy, bigger, thicker, taller, stronger, and Stentor understood he was unlikely to win except by some strange act of the gods. There was no earthquake or lightning bolt and so he didn't win, but he wasn't struck down, and he didn't leave the field any more bruised or humiliated; the other boy clasped his wrist and thanked him for his opposition, and then they parted ways. And afterwards, when the others left, Stentor lingered. His opponent made a proposition to Nikolaos - rejection, once again - then Nikolaos' attention turned to Stentor. 

"You fought well," he said. 

"I lost," Stentor replied. 

"You were outmatched. You didn't back down. There's no shame in that."

He winced as he stretched his leg and Stentor cleared his throat. He knelt, and though he wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing, he supposed he had nothing very much to lose. He reached for the small jar of oil that was sitting there on the ground beside Nikolaos' feet; Nikolaos sat back and watched as Stentor coated his fingers with it. Nikolaos watched him, and Stentor ran his hands over Nikolaos' thigh. He rubbed, with both his thumbs, kneeling there in front of him, as his heart beat so strongly in his chest that the only thing that kept his fingers warm and not chilly with anxiety was the heat of Nikolaos' skin. He could feel his own reaction, how he stiffened underneath his tunic though it was, fortunately, out of Nikolaos' line of sight. And, once he'd finished, once Nikolaos had left, he took care of that situation then and there in the dust by the training field. 

The next day, the final day, the heavens opened and it poured, but that didn't stop the fighting. Stentor lost, against another older, stronger boy, the last fight of that last day. It was a close-fought thing, he thought, though they were sliding in the mud by the end of things and once they were done, Nikolaos stood. He came out from underneath the canopy the instructors had had their helots set up for him, out into the rain that soaked him through in seconds, and held out his hand to Stentor. He pulled him up. He didn't seem to care that mud splashed on his skin, or smudged onto his hand and arm. 

None of the other boys lingered; they left, quickly, dashing back to the barracks through the rain though they were all already soaked so Stentor didn't understand their hurry. Stentor was left there with Nikolaos, alone, with rain that ran down his chest and back and arms and legs and from his shorn hair into his eyes and kept him blinking. 

"Better," Nikolaos told him. "I don't doubt you'll make a fine soldier."

"But I lost," Stentor replied. 

"You did. But I can see how you'll improve with time." His mouth twisted, very nearly to a smile. "You remind me of me when I was your age."

Stentor frowned. It was difficult for him to see it, especially then, muddy and drenched, but he supposed he understood; he'd lost, but he was young and had time to learn, and Nikolaos hadn't seemed the sort of man who flattered. 

Nikolaos stepped in underneath the canopy and waved Stentor to follow. His seat was there, and he sat himself down, and he waved Stentor to the instructor's seat beside him, heedless of the way the rain soaked into his clothes would probably stain the linen; he didn't seem the sort of man to flatter, and he didn't seem the sort of man who cared about a linen stain in the course of duty, either. 

"Some of your classmates have had a question to ask me," Nikolaos said, once they were settled. 

Stentor grimaced. "I know," he replied. "You turned them down. I heard."

"I did." Nikolaos looked at him, levelly. "Is there anything _you_ would want to ask, Stentor?"

Stentor's grimace didn't shift at all. If anything, it deepened, because the question made no sense to him unless he was being baited into some kind of humiliation, but that didn't seem like something Nikolaos was known for; Stentor had come to the conclusion that his reaction to Diokles that day had been half awkwardness and half in response to Diokles' own arrogance. And, much as Stentor would have liked to have turned back the days, dismissed his distraction and found a way to prove himself against the agoge's best fighter, as much as Stentor would have liked to have proven himself to Nikolaos despite the fact he'd professed no interest in finding himself an eromenos, on that visit or any other. 

"No," Stentor said, not entirely sure if he was being sensible or a fucking coward. 

"Then I should ask you." Nikolaos stood up and stepped in front of him, and Stentor had to crane his neck back to look at him. 

"I warn you, I will often be away from Sparta," Nikolaos said. "You won't see me often, and I won't promise letters. There may well be a more suitable man for you, Stentor, and I didn't come here looking for a boy. I came to convalesce after my injury and the ephors asked me to make an assessment of the agoge's instructors." He sighed. He rubbed his mouth. He tugged his beard and looked away for a moment, as if much more accustomed to giving orders to his men than speeches to boys not yet old enough to fight for Sparta. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Stentor's grimace finally gave way to a frown, because he supposed he did understand. 

"You're asking me to be your eromenos?" he said, half sure he didn't understand at all. But then Nikolaos said, "Yes, I am." And then he said, "Do you agree?"

He knows not that it might have been more beneficial to him personally if he'd declined. Not in his career, no, because he doubts he would have made it far beyond the rank and file without the boost that his name's attachment to Nikolaos' gave him. He might have been free of the desire that had already taken root in him, though, that wasn't quite what was acceptable in an eromenos. And Nikolaos had warned him of how distant he would be, and inaccessible at times when stationed out of Sparta. But, of course, he wasn't quite fourteen years old, and he wanted it. Especially, he didn't yet have the benefit of hindsight. 

He said yes. Bemused, and not entirely sure what had just happened, he said yes. 

The next day, Nikolaos left. Just as he'd intended all along. 

\---

"Do you remember?" Nikolaos asks. 

Stentor clenches and unclenches his jaw. He clenches and unclenches his fists. 

"Yes," he says. "I lost a fight. And then you left."

He'd never questioned that he would, of course. He'd known all along that when it came to it, the brief notes delivered from the places Nikolaos was sent to with the army had been more than he'd expected. Six times in a little more than a year had almost seemed a lot. 

"Do you remember the first time you came here?" Nikolaos asks. 

Stentor laughs, more than a little bitterly. "Yes," he says again, and gestures at the table. "We ate the same meal as this." 

He does remember it. He remembers the run from the barracks, hoping he remembered the directions he'd been given, and how Nikolaos looked up as he came to the open door. He remembers being invited in and the meal they ate, and how he didn't realise at the time that Nikolaos had likely had to call in favours to take the night with him away from his syssition. A year had passed and Stentor was older, taller, stronger, his skills more refined; if he'd had to fight then, he'd have won, but without the constant thought of Nikolaos' approval he was unsure of the kind of fighter he'd have been. Without that, he might have learned to fight dirty. 

They ate the same meal that first night, then drank a cup of wine together. They sat opposite each other across the table - the same table - and then, at last Nikolaos flexed his hands and laid them on the tabletop. The moderately easy silence stretched and turned more awkward. 

Stentor remembers how his chest felt tight as he chewed his lip and looked at Nikolaos. It had been a year but Nikolaos had spent most of it outside Sparta, and the two previous meetings they'd had had been extremely brief and very public, just enough to remind others that this boy was the Wolf's eromenos. _Nikolaos' eromenos_. In name, perhaps, if not in deed. If Stentor had only spent one night imagining his attention, it wouldn't have been more than he'd received. 

"Stentor..." Nikolaos said. 

"Should I undress?" Stentor asked, because he wasn't sure how else to make Nikolaos aware that he really didn't mind the things that they were meant to do. He wasn't sure how to make him aware that he might like it, or that perhaps he wanted it. And he was prepared, he thought, for him to say no - he knew not every erastes felt sex was part of their duty. He wouldn't even have minded if he'd rejected his advance, just as long as it meant he knew what not to expect. But Nikolaos said _yes_ , to his great surprise. 

"Yes," he said, as if it cost him to say it, though what precisely the cost might be made no sense to Stentor at the time. Later, he supposed it might have been his pride, as if all he'd wished to do with him that evening was speak, and go through the motions, and all that he'd intended of their relationship was easing Stentor's way in life, not this. "Yes," he said, and pushed his stool back from the table. "Take your clothes off and come here."

Stentor's breath felt short as he untied his belt then pulled his tunic off over his head. He remembers shivering and not being entirely sure if he was cold or maybe nervous, or maybe it was both, but once he was naked he did as he was told and went to Nikolaos. He let him bend him down over the table there in front of him. 

There was oil on the table from dinner, in a small jug with an open neck, and Stentor watched as Nikolaos dragged it closer to the edge. He watched as Nikolaos dipped his fingers into it, as the oil slicked them, as it dripped down his fingers and then he shifted his hand away to where he couldn't see. He closed his eyes then, as he felt Nikolaos' other hand move over the small of his back, over the curve of his arse, and part his cheeks. He bit his lip and pressed his forehead to the table and he expected to feel Nikolaos' fingers there against him, between his cheeks, against his hole, but that feeling didn't come. Nikolaos pushed his cock between his thighs instead, had him close them tight and rocked his hips against him. Stentor didn't mind it when Nikolaos came with his cock pushed up behind his balls, because he could hear the way his breath caught with it and afterwards, he used a damp cloth to wipe his come away from Stentor's skin then left him alone there to finish himself. 

The second time he went to the house was nearly half a year later, though he still can't be sure if that was due to shame on Nikolaos' part or the fact that his position kept him absent from the city quite so often. There had been letters in the intervening time, brief notes telling him in vague terms about the places that he'd been to so that were those notes intercepted Sparta's enemies would glean no useful information. They were enough, though, that he learned Nikolaos' hand, even if he couldn't keep the notes. He had nowhere to keep them then, nowhere private, nowhere particularly secure, and so he burned them after reading, like an offering that Nikolaos would come back well. 

That second time when he went to the house, they ate together again once the helots had left them. They spoke a little, about Nikolaos' work and Stentor's training, about his opinions of the other boys, about his instructors. He'd understood from their few previous interactions that the Wolf of Sparta was a private man, a quiet man, with a past that haunted him even though he'd done his duty, and he knew he mustn't push him, at least not too hard. But, when their conversation lapsed, the nerves that wine and conversation had helped to dull began to jangle once more. When that silence stretched, he took a breath and said, "Should I undress?"

The look on Nikolaos' face said anything but yes. It said he wished he'd never met this boy who sat there at his table, that he regretted making him an offer, or at the very least that he could end their relationship right then and there without the possibility of scandal. But then that look changed and Nikolaos nodded slowly. He set his hands down on the table's edge and gripped, then pushed himself back to leave a gap between the table and himself. 

"Yes," he said, and he leaned forward far enough to tap the table's edge. "Undress and lean here." So, of course, Stentor did. 

He assumed that it would be the same again, just Nikolaos' thick cock pressed in between his thighs, slick with table oil, and then a few minutes alone to take care of his own reaction to it. He assumed Nikolaos' fingers in the oil were to slick his own cock but then he felt the drip-drip-drip of it against his arse, against the indent by the crack of it, and then Nikolaos' free hand spread his cheeks to let the oil drip against his hole. He felt himself pull tight as it happened, and he pressed his forehead down against the table, and he shuffled his feet a little wider apart, and he heard Nikolaos sigh. He heard the stool squeak against the floor as he stood. Then he felt Nikolaos' slick fingers stroke his rim. 

All he did was use his fingers, and Stentor thought it might somehow have been easier if he'd just used his cock. He used his fingers, though: he pushed one into him, slowly, giving him time to stretch, then eased another in beside it. Stentor knew they were callused from use of the spear he carried, though he couldn't feel that; all he could feel was their thickness as they opened him, their slickness as he slid them in, eased out, pushed back in again. His cock would have been thicker still, Stentor knew that, but Nikolaos' fingers in him had an intimacy that he'd never expected. Especially when he heard the hitch of Nikolaos' breath and felt the splash of his release against his skin. Nikolaos used that, slid his fingers through it to make it easier when he pushed them back into Stentor's hole. And that time, when Stentor came, it was around his erastes' fingers and all over his kitchen floor. 

The third time, he was sixteen years old, and the equal of any other boy in the agoge. Nikolaos had come to see him fight earlier that day, and he'd won his match; his opponent was a larger boy, older, taller, stronger, but Stentor had superior technique and skill that he'd worked long hours, past dusk, to hone. He didn't gloat. He didn't kick the other boy down into the dirt. He just turned to Nikolaos and raised his spear to him. Nikolaos raised one hand in acknowledgement and perhaps Stentor didn't show it outwardly but inside, his heart soared. At last, at long last, he'd won for him. 

He hadn't expected there to be more to the day after that - he'd expected Nikolaos to leave, perhaps without saying a word, but that was not what happened. Nikolaos stayed, and took him aside, and told him he'd asked permission to take him from the agoge for the evening, and so they left together. He remembers riding back toward Nikolaos' house, sharing his horse, riding behind him with his thighs pressed up to his and his hands taking a loose grip at his waist to keep from tumbling. He remembers dinner, and the sort of conversation he was used to from him by then, about places he'd been and skirmishes his men had had along the way. Then he told him more about tensions with Athens, and things the ephors said to him, and Stentor understood those things were told to him in confidence; he felt a surge in his chest when he realised that Nikolaos trusted him not only with that information but with his own reputation. 

Afterwards, they drank a cup of wine each, still sitting at the table. The silence stretched, as had begun to seem quite usual. And Stentor said, "Should I undress?"

Nikolaos didn't have to say a word. When he pushed back from the table and gave the edge a tap, Stentor understood his answer. 

That night, Nikolaos had him. He slicked Stentor's hole with oil, rubbed it there between his cheeks with his rough fingertips and then pressed his fingers up inside, but that wasn't all he did. He slicked himself and Stentor knew because he could hear it, the faint sound of one oily hand against his skin before his cock rubbed there between his cheeks. The length of it ran against him, over his hole, slipped down and nudged his balls, and the way Nikolaos cursed beneath his breath made Stentor's chest feel tight. When he pressed the tip against him, bluntly, Stentor felt that and told himself to be prepared. Then Nikolaos pushed inside, slowly, halting, a stop-start-stop-start against the tightness he encountered, until Stentor finally managed to take a breath and begin to relax. 

Nikolaos had him, bent over the table, with his long, thick cock pushed up deep inside him, making his spine tingle. The way they moved made the feet of the table squeak against the floor. The way they moved made Stentor's breath short and made Nikolaos' hands grip hard at Stentor's hips. Nikolaos pulled him down onto the floor instead, onto his hands and knees so that the things still on the table wouldn't find their way to the edge and drop and break, and suddenly he was in him even deeper, the angle changed, like he filled him completely. And he knew he shouldn't but he pushed back against him, just a little, just toward the end, when he could pretend he couldn't stop himself. He came on the floor, arse pulling tight around the length of Nikolaos' cock. And Nikolaos came in him with a last jerk of his hips and a curse like he hadn't meant to do that, like perhaps he'd meant to come against his back and not inside him. 

When Stentor got back to the barracks, he was still slick from Nikolaos' come. And, for the first time in years, he slipped around behind the building and pressed his forehead there against the wall just like he had that day, before. He closed his eyes, and he imagined that he'd been allowed to stay the night. 

There were times, here and there, over the next year and a half. Four of them in total - one quite soon after that but then not for half a year, and then another season after that. Stentor was still in the agoge, well respected, aware of his own skill, and aware also of the debt he owed to Nikolaos; sometimes, when he was in Sparta, they stole an hour here or there to train together, and the great general didn't spare him. He sometimes thinks, even now, that he learned more about fighting from those few hours of Nikolaos' instruction than he did in the last three years of the agoge together. 

There were times, here and there, until Stentor was seventeen years old, very nearly eighteen. And he'd thought at the time, when he'd received the message that he was to meet the Wolf at his home that evening, that it would be another night like the others before it: they would eat, they would talk, and then he would undress for what came after. He found himself looking forward to the feel of Nikolaos' hands against his skin, though he often longed to feel his mouth chased after fingertips, or press to his own lips, like they were more than what they were. He understood, of course, and always has: he was never Nikolaos' lover, only what the bounds of their relationship said was permissible to them. 

He expected sex. He finished his wine and said, "Should I undress?" just like those times before, and had come to expect that the answer would be _yes_. He stood, his hands already at his belt, but Nikolaos shook his head. 

"No," he said. "Sit down. We have something to discuss." 

He'd thought that they'd have time yet before he was too old for this. He'd thought there might be another year or two before he became a soldier and they'd have to leave all this behind, and he'd been slowly steeling himself for that. 

"I plan to adopt you as my son," Nikolaos said, and Stentor sat down heavily as his mind reeled. He knew that what they'd had would have to end there, early, if he agreed to an adoption; Nikolaos' sense of honour wouldn't allow him to fuck his own son, even his son by adoption. And he didn't want it to end, not at all, not ever - he'd have made himself seventeen for all eternity if it would have meant that Nikolaos was allowed to have him. 

He didn't want it to end, but he understood what adoption would mean. He understood what it would mean to him, and to Nikolaos - he'd have an heir, after all those years, without taking another wife and fathering another child, and Stentor would have an irrevocable, legal connection to Sparta's most important general. 

He wanted to say no, but he couldn't say no and not disappoint the best man that he'd met in life thus far. He couldn't say no and not risk everything, so he said yes and became the son of the man he wanted as a lover. And when he took his place in the army, when he rose so quickly, no one questioned it: after all he was Nikolaos' son. 

All these years, he's done his duty. All these years, he's told himself that what he has is more than enough. 

Now, he knows it never was. 

\---

This is not the house that he grew up in. He doesn't live here. This is not his home. 

Over the years he's not been inside this place more than twenty times, and one of those times was for a disastrous dinner with his father's long-lost children. He still doesn't understand how Sparta has welcomed them home with open arms, and so has Nikolaos, when all they do is flout Spartan law. Stentor has spent his whole life doing his duty, being precisely who his _father_ wanted him to be; now he's second best, or seems it. All it took was for Alexios to find him there in Megaris, and Stentor was forgotten.

"I thought you were dead," Stentor says. He frowns. He _scowls_ , because perhaps the fact of it is he's been pushed too far for reconciliation or whatever it is that Nikolaos has brought him for. 

"You were my..." He takes a breath, and doesn't say any of the words that fit that space, because none of them do precisely. " _I thought you were dead_. Why did you let me believe that?"

Nikolaos looks at him over the old, familiar table. Very little about the place has changed over the years, Stentor thinks; the table and chairs and stools are almost all the same, except with a little more wear, just like Nikolaos himself. The meal they're eating is the same as they had that first night. Everything about this is wrong. 

"I couldn't," Nikolaos replies. "How could I?"

"You could have tried." 

"I'm trying now."

"Not hard."

Nikolaos frowns. Stentor has seen him angry and this is not quite it, but there's a hint to the expression and he likes that, he thinks. He looks more alive like that than he's seen him since he reappeared in Boeotia. 

"Why am I here?" Stentor asks, before Nikolaos can say another word, and the expression on his face turns more awkward then than angry, and more resolute. 

"While I was away--" he says. 

"While you were letting me believe you'd died."

"While I was away, there were things I came to understand." 

Stentor leans back. He crosses his arms over his chest. He knows his attitude is more petulant than even in his childhood, but he doesn't care. He cares that the look on Nikolaos' face has changed more often in the past five minutes than it has in twenty years. 

"What things were those?" he asks, though his snide, dismissive tone says that he doesn't care, and he honestly wishes that were true. He wants him to apologise, though he's not sure he could accept it. He wants him to say _I understand that duty is not more important than people that we care about_ , though those words don't sound like him. He wants him to rant, and break things, and tell him everything has been his fault. But Nikolaos doesn't answer him. He spreads his hands on the table and he sighs. He smiles, tight but maybe genuine, and Stentor feels it in his chest. His chest feels as tight as Nikolaos' smile. 

Nikolaos has never been good with words that aren't battle or war or troop movements on a map, and there have been times over the years when Stentor has wondered if he's ever wanted to say more than that, to anyone, or if he lost that when he lost his family that night on Taygetos. He's wondered and come to the conclusion that Nikolaos has nothing to say to him beyond a half-fond clap on the back when he's done well that feels like everything to him when he has so very little. But now, looking at him, he thinks he understands. 

_Should I undress?_ he asked, all those times before he was his son, and all the times after that when he thought of him at night. And now, as they sit there, he says it again: "Should I undress?" 

His mouth still has that bitter twist, and he expects him to say no though he wants the opposite and the look on Nikolaos' face says that he might want that, too. 

"Yes," Nikolaos says, as he looks at him. " _Yes_ ," he admits, as he grips hard at the table. He doesn't have to say another word. 

And, after all this time, Stentor does just that. In a rush of something heady, he does that. He stands, and he unties his belt, and he takes off his tunic. He bares himself in the lamplight after dark, there in Nikolaos' home, like he's done so many times before, but this time he knows it's different because the look on Nikolaos' face tells him it is. 

He's not seventeen years old any longer. He's twice that age now. He's a man in ways he wasn't then, with scars from battles he's fought all over Greece, and a body that reminds him of how Nikolaos looked the day they met, just without the beard. He's everything he hoped that he might be one day, because of Nikolaos and how he longed for his approval. He stands at the head of an army, where Nikolaos' place was, too. And he stands here, naked, grown, and wraps one hand around his own thickening cock. He tells himself he won't be shy. He's had enough of holding back. 

When he goes to him, when Nikolaos rises, Stentor kisses him. It's all teeth for a start, clacking together awkwardly, until he growls and pulls back and lets his mouth take on a hint of softness. He expects Nikolaos to push him back but he doesn't: he takes him by the arms, like he's unsure of the mechanics here, and kisses back.

When he pushes him down over the table, Stentor lets him. When he curses as he realises there's no fucking oil this time and parts Stentor's cheeks to spit instead, he lets him. He rubs him with the pad of one thumb, pushing against him but not quite penetrating, while he strokes himself - he supposes Nikolaos is older now, and that it might take him more time, but apparently not much. He pushes the head against his rim and rubs it there. Stentor finds he wants this all too fucking much to care that he's so tight it almost hurts when Nikolaos pushes in. 

For the first time, Nikolaos' hands stray over his skin, hesitant like he's unsure what he's doing with them. His thumbs trace the line of Stentor's spine down to the place where he's inside him and he rubs there, where his cock is, until Stentor feels the pleasure of it tingling in his balls. He hasn't let anyone else have him like this but Nikolaos, though he supposes Nikolaos has never had him like this, either. Not with one hand twisting his braided hair around his palm to ease his head back, making his back arch so he opens up a little further around his big cock. Not when he can hear Nikolaos' hitching breath as he starts to fuck him slowly, deep and hard. Stentor doesn't care what he might think any longer and he pushes back to meet his thrusts, as the force of each one rocks him up onto his toes. He braces himself and Nikolaos groans. Stentor's not sure he's heard anything like it, knowing Nikolaos wants him and it's not just his Spartan duty. 

Then Nikolaos' hand wanders, skims his hip and skims his belly and wraps around his cock, and strokes. It takes Stentor no time at all to tense and moan and shove back hard on Nikolaos' cock, and come all over the fucking floor while he's still there inside him. He's never touched him like this. He never imagined that he would. 

And, when Nikolaos is done, when he's spent himself inside him with a groan and a push and a squeeze of his hips, they stand there together, Nikolaos still inside him. When he pulls out, slowly, he rubs his fingers there where he's just been. Stentor's rim pulls tight and Nikolaos' chuckles and Stentor feels himself start blushing, not quite angrily. But then Nikolaos eases him up. He eases him around to face him. He sets both his hands on both Stentor's shoulders and says, "I'm proud of you." Perhaps it's not quite the sentiment that Stentor wants, but it's also not exactly not, and Stentor kisses him before he can say anything even more absurd. It doesn't matter that neither of them is good at it; they're awkward, but Stentor supposes it's like anything else, like fighting, like a sword, and they'll improve with practice. 

It's not forgiveness, no, because Stentor is still angry. Nikolaos has done things Stentor's not sure he can atone for, but that doesn't mean that he won't let him try. 

It's not forgiveness, no. But when Nikolaos' hands are on his skin, Stentor thinks maybe it's a start.


End file.
